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ramsey

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Posts posted by ramsey

    Berghia Nudibrach GO

    in Group Orders

    Posted

    Nope, they haven't been ordered yet. I actually found someone that will do $10 for each Nudi with free shipping over 40. He'll separate and label everything in individual bags and send everyone a transfer pipette. He'll also throw in free egg strands for anyone ordering more than 5. We're at 30 so I need someone that wants another 10. Let me know if you're interested.

    Precision Marine Support

    in Reef Keeping

    Posted

    people need to stop using these forums for their own vindictive purposes. Geez, he didn't answer your second e-mail, so you want to try and ruin his business?

    This is why companies are starting to sue people who resort to libelous, forum-bashing.

    First, I'm not using the forums for those purposes. I feel like people should know. What if I said nothing and someone else on ARC got treated this way tomorrow? I'd feel a little guilty for not giving a warning.

    Posting negative feedback on their support on a LOCAL reef forum is hardly trying to ruin their business. I didn't blast it all over the internet.

    You may not have a problem getting bad service and keep your experience to yourself not warning others. This just not my style. I provide a high level of service to my customers and I like to get some respect when the tables turned.

    I spent $400 for a sump from them. Not responding to my emails for two weeks is just not right when I'm trying to get support on something I spent a great deal of money on.

    On a another note, I did speak with him via email further about the situation and though I'll still likely never buy from them, he did make a small effort to try and smooth things over. It wasn't much but it was something. Just wanted to throw that out there to be fair.

    Precision Marine Support

    in Reef Keeping

    Posted

    BIGBIRD,

    This is a pretty strong indication of their customer service. I feel like people that aren't on MAAST have the right to know what they may or may not receive if they need to contact them. You know, just bad customer service is one thing, but when the owner of a popular company responds to a complaint about their service by insulting their customer and acting like he wants to fight, people should know about that. I tried to handle it reasonably. I think my post was reasonable and it was on MAAST, not RC. I respect your opinion but in the case I feel that people should know how I was treated so they know what experience they may have from them. If you've had a good experience with them, I'm happy for you. For me, this has been BY FAR the worst service experience I've ever had.

    live rock wanted.

    in Free

    Posted

    I have some I can sell you. I took it out of my tank two weeks ago when the tank leaked and I don't need it in the new tank. It's currently sitting in a trashcan with a heater and some pumps. I'm in New Braunfels and I'll sell it for $2 a lb. How much are you looking for? I have probably close to 100lbs.

    The myth of LED efficiency

    in Reef Keeping

    Posted

    First, as I mentioned, I have four over my tank and the light spread is just fine. The specs you listed are for an older generation. They now recommend one every 30" or less. This is because they are using different lenses.

    "Recommended Tank Width: up to 30" with proper placement of corals. Recommended Tank Depth: up to 36" with proper placement of corals. Power Consumption: up to 75W per module."

    Of course they say "with proper placement of corals". You wouldn't want to put your lower light corals way up in the tank and SPS at the bottom. :( I have two clams at the bottom of my tank. They seem to be doing great so far. I'll keep you posted though.

    Also, $5 a month for bulb changes? What kind of bulbs are you using? You said 1200w so I assume you're using 3 X 400w lights. You may be able to change one bulb for $5 per month. That's if you're using low end bulbs and your not supplementing with VHO's or T5's.

    A chiller is a HUGE turn off for me. First, I have this ugly thing sitting next to my tank but the real reason is it's a piece of equipment that I MUST have. I could get by without a protein skimmer, an ATO, etc. I would not be able to get away with no chiller.

    I will give you one thing, for your tank, you may need 5 or 6. I get good coverage but I also have nothing about 4-5" on each side of the tank. With my overflows in each corner, I have very little room. However, the corners of the tank are till lit on the bottom, but there is a darn "triangle" that starts about 8" up and goes about 4-5" on each side (at the top).

    One more thing I'd like to mention. One of the current themes in this hobby seems to be over-lighting a tank. While I think intense lighting is important, I think it is possible to overdo it. Running 12 of these would be a waste IMO. There is a thread on MAAST that I've been commenting in and one guy is running 8 fixtures over his tank.

    I will keep updated on how things are doing. I bought an acro SPS a few days ago partly due to this thread. :P I'm more of a zoa/LPS guy but I want to see how it does under my lights. So far, everything seems to be responding great. The true test will be growth so time will tell.

    The myth of LED efficiency

    in Reef Keeping

    Posted

    Well I've been thinking and I can't start another project/experiment over here. I have my hands full with the big tank at this point and I need to use my refugium for a refugium. But if someone is still interested I actually have a 150 watt setup with a 30 gallon frag tank, overflow, sump, pump and the coral to test! Someone would need to supply the $400 fixture and take care of the tank....

    Keep in mind that my main complaint is efficiency....take a look at the bottom of this article that was posted earlier.

    http://www.advanceda...10/5/aafeature2

    The aquaillumination fixtures uses 75 watts and is a 12" x 12" square,this is the fixture that shows the best results when tested. Because of the small footprint of the directional LED lighting if I wanted to use this fixture to grow coral over a 150 gallon tank (2' x 6' long) I would need 12 of them for complete coverage of the tank, the same coverage that I would get from MH. Well added up this is 900 watts...that's more than a 1000 watt lamp!!! Ok lets say you only use 6 fixtures instead only placing them down the center of the tank, that's still 450 watts WHICH IS THE SAME POWER USAGE OF DUAL 250 WATT LAMPS! Where are the energy savings? If you think that 12 or even 6 of the LED fixtures don't make heat as much heat as MH that simply isn't true, remember wattage = heat. Now the big question is will 12 of these fixtures out perform a 1000 watt lamp? Will 6 of these out perform a dual 250 watt? Keep in mind that is just to be equal power usage, the advantage of LEDs is that they use LESS power for the same results. So if you think that (3) of these LED fixtures will out perform a dual 250 watt setup I think there is no way just b/c of the small foot print alone.

    I have four modules on a 6' long bowfront (two foot wide in the center). I have them hung over the tank about 4-5". The light coverage is great. I don't get any spot lighting or anything. I'm not sure why you'd think you would need 12. I wouldn't put 12 250w mh lamps over my tank. I had a 250w fixture over the tank before going to these. One seems every bit as bright as the 250w light, IMO much brighter. I'd like to get my hands on a PAR meter to test for myself. My point is, I can easily get away with four over my tank. Before I decided going with LEDs, I was gonna do a 400w MH and 2 - 250w MH's with at least two actinic T5s. I was also going to have to run a chiller. So in my case, I'm using far less wattage then I would be using if I had not gone with LEDs. Saying that there's no way of 3 of those fixtures will not outperform 2 250w MH is wrong. I think 3 would GREATLY outperform 2 250w MH's, pretty sure it would greatly outperform 3 - 250w MH's. Now if you wanted to argue if they'd outperform 3 400w MH, you may have a valid concern/argument.

    The myth of LED efficiency

    in Reef Keeping

    Posted · Edited by ramsey

    Cool sounds fun, I'm glad you are on board. I just put in a refugium on my big tank, I could put LED over 1/2 and MH over the other 1/2. Now I have to buy another LED fixture ******, how much did yours cost? If I'm comparing MH to LED we have to decide what is apples to apples before we get started...in other words what wattage of LED is supposed to be comprable to 150 MH? This is an important # and must be widely accepted for this experiment to work. In my industry they claim to use 1/2 of the power of MH. A digital ballast for a 150 watt lamp uses about 1.25 amps, so we would need to make an LED fixture that used .625 if using the example from my industry. How do we find out what is comprable?

    That's not easy to answer. There are a lot of variables that go into that. First, from my research, it seems that quality optics are just as important as the LED's themselves. There are currently two methods, high intensity, high wattage LEDs -or- lower wattage LEDs and high quality lenses. From what I can see, the second approach seems to be the best. So the real question is, do you want to compare a high quality LED fixture VS a high quality MH lamp? If you try and compare a low quality LED, nothing will get proven IMO. Again, I'm no light expert, this is based off the brief research I did when I decided to go LED. LED VS MH was a huge concern for me so I wanted to know a little bit about what I was getting myself in to.

    If I could, I would love to see a comparison of an AI fixture over a 10g nano and 250w MH with a quality reflector over an exact 10g nano, both plumbed together with the exact water flow, temp, etc, etc. I think that would be a somewhat accurate comparison though I wouldn't submit it to a scientific journal. It be more of a fun pseudo experiment. :)

    The myth of LED efficiency

    in Reef Keeping

    Posted

    I'm no expert on lighting but I did do some research when I decided to go LED.

    Are you using LEDs to grow corals in your tank? Any SPS? How much LED wattage do you have overall?

    Please post some pics!

    I just got and set up my LED system about a week ago. They are 90w ( I think) each and I have four modules total over a 175g (Aqua Illumination fixtures). I have one SPS (a monti). Everything seems to be responding VERY WELL to the new lights. There seem to be more polyps on the monit out and all my LPS seems to be opening up more and just looks "healthier". It's important to note that the light system I had before was very underpowered (1 250w MH and a 4' PC fixture), Time will tell. My point was, from what I've read, PAR is a more important measurement than lumens. Lumens simply refer to how bright our eyes perceive the light to be. I'm in no way, shape or form saying that PAR is the end all, be all. I'm saying it's a better measurement and that lumen is somewhat of a moot point. *If* this is true, I encourage you to look at the PAR data for the AI LED module in this link:

    http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2010/5/aafeature2

    Make sure you look at the Aqua Illumination data and not the other cheesy LED fixtures.

    Then, compare it to the PAR data for some various MH lights in this link:

    http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2010/2/aafeature2

    Again, this assumes that PAR data is a decent measurement when it comes to growing coral. There are other measurements that may or may not be better but PAR seems to be one of the first thing the experts look at.

    The myth of LED efficiency

    in Reef Keeping

    Posted

    I'm no expert on lighting but I did do some research when I decided to go LED. It's my understanding that PAR is more important than lumens. In other words, you could have high lumens and low PAR and have problems. Is this not the case? Someone care to explain?

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